I have been playing long and short pips for fun these days and one of the blades that I tried out is the Blaster, with a name like that, there are no questions about the type of play it is made for.
Specs:
Plies: Hinoki - Avi - Avi Core - Avi - Hinoki Thickness: 8.3mm Weight: comes in 80-90gm range, the one i tested was 86g Rubbers: MX-P and 802-40 2.15mm (boosted with a layer of FTL) Flex: Stiff Speed: OFF Pictures: http://imgur.com/a/UMYtl" rel="nofollow - http://imgur.com/a/UMYtl
Let me start off by saying how solid this blade's construction is, it feels like you are holding thor's hammer, but not in the sense that it is heavy, but just a very sturdy piece of wood. Also the handle is pretty thick, i have put a quarter on the handle in one of the pictures for perspective.
Following are my observations while playing various strokes
Countering: Even though the blade is stiff and thick, I could feel the ball well and was able to adjust my stroke, and i had to use moderate effort to get the ball over.
Driving/Looping: I had to put in a little extra effort while driving to generate the same spin that i get with my ALC, but the thick hinoki outers seem to be able to give a decent amount of dwell time, however I had a really hard time with looping underspin, I suspect this is due to the blade not flexing and me having to do all the work.
Blocking: Extremely solid blocking with the ability to direct balls to hard to get places for your opponents, and also the short pips works very well, i was able to dead ball quite a few topspins, which threw off my opponent's timing.
Pushing: Another strength of this blade, i was able to generate some really heavy pushes and backspin serves with the 802-40, which surprised my friend, as he wasn't expecting that kind of backspin from non-inverted
Smashing: This is the fun part, it feels like there is a hidden turbo mode or a special spring inside of it, when you smash hard, the blade comes to life and you feel like the force has suddenly doubled. Downside being the new plastic balls are expensive and fragile :-(
This is a blade that is made for blocking, pushing and smashing. Its the muscle car version of a table tennis blade.
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